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@ShahidNShah

How RxNorm fits into clinical interoperability

These days I gets lots of emails with questions like “What’s RxNorm?” and “How should we use UMLS in our software?” These subject areas are important to cover because if you’re doing any work in healthcare interoperability and don’t know about UMLS and code sets like RxNorm then you really should get up to speed quickly. Charlie Harp over at ClinicalArchitecture.com has put together a great 15 minute overview of RxNorm and the UMLS Metathesaurus.

Shahid N. Shah

10 Words I, too, Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases

I just ran across Robin Wauters’ post over at TechCrunch about 10 Words I Would Love To See Banned From Press Releases. It’s a great summary of my own frustrations as a blogger who sees tons of press releases a week. Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing emails about new products and services and I welcome submissions of press releases or other announcements to media@healthcareguy.com. Like most bloggers, I’m happy to get engaging emails and I respond to almost all messages that are addressed specifically to me (as opposed to a general mailling list) and look like they weren’t sent as a mass e-mail.

Shahid N. Shah

Guest Article: Why Doctors Hate Electronic Medical Records

_ Most of us in the healthcare IT believe the ARRA (stimulus) bill is a Good Thing for the industry in general. Many existing companies will be able to sell more products and many new companies will be formed to create electronic medical records solutions. I was talking to Dr. Bill Cast last week about EMRs and what he and other physicians thought about them in general and I got some great feedback.

Shahid N. Shah

Reminder: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in healthcare unconference in Houston next week

I grew up in Houston and normally it’s not exactly the best place to be in the middle of Summer (it’s pretty hot and humid); however, this Summer is different because we have the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in healthcare unconference taking place next week. This is a conference/unconference about Free and Open Source Software in Healthcare. Open Source was specifically mentioned in the Hi-Tech portion of the stimulus bill!

Shahid N. Shah

Conducting market research for your healthcare IT app

Many of you out there are looking at the ARRA (stimulus) bill for ways to sell your healthcare IT wares to healthcare providers. One of the weaknesses of most tech-focused companies is that don’t spend enough time on market research to figure out where to sell their products. That’s primarily because it’s not always easy to get useful statistics so here’s a little advice I give to my startups when they ask “where do I find out how many doctors there are in the country?

Shahid N. Shah

Ingenious use of tech: Training Med Students in Second Life (virtual) Hospitals

Discover Magazine asks Can Training in Second Life Teach Doctors to Save Real Lives? While many in the tech world are looking at the ARRA Stimulus Bill’s money being spent on EMRs and giving the world the thousandth version of a medical records system it’s great to see some creative technologists are using their brains on simulations and training programs that could actually make better doctors, not just more efficient administrators.

Shahid N. Shah

Guest Article: Selecting or Designing iPhone and Mobile Software for Physicians

_I get a lot of questions asking for advice on how to build mobile software and one of the most popular questions is about how and where to save data on a mobile device (because of HIPAA and privacy rules). I reached out to Adam Kenney, a software engineer pMDsoft who leads a team of developers focused on mobile charge capture. Adam and his team have been building medical apps for mobile platforms and his insights arise from direct experience managing the design, development, and support of native applications for the Palm, BlackBerry, and iPhone.

Shahid N. Shah

Guest Article: Status of CCHIT and certification for ARRA

Many people have been e-mailing me asking about the status of CCHIT and ARRA certification. Jim Tate, President of EMR Advocate, is an experienced project manager in the implementation of both EHR and Practice Management systems and consults with EHR vendors regarding interface and functional specifications, marketing strategy, documentation and CCHIT certification. Many of us have had to put our plans on hold because of the pending government regulations so I asked him to provide us a quick summary of what direction he thinks the current certification winds are blowing.

Shahid N. Shah

Federal standards body is looking for some health IT usability experts

Last week I was approached but one of the federal government standards bodies that is putting together some advice and standards around healthcare IT usability. They are seeking usability experts to join people like me on their advisory council. If you’re a healthcare IT usability specialist and would like to be nominated to join the experts panel please drop me a note or leave your name and contact information as a comment on my blog.

Shahid N. Shah

Guest Article: Can Twitter help stop or slow down human virsuses?

Chris Thorman, who blogs about medical software at Software Advice, gave me a call recently and talked to me about Twitter’s potential use in tracking disease outbreaks. As evidenced by Twitter’s front-and-center role in the “Second Iranian Revolution,” the micro-blogging tool has emerged as a serious communication channel. Chris talked to me about how he thinks Twitter is every bit as relevant in medicine as it is in politics, business and personal communications.

Shahid N. Shah
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